


Silver Buttons All Down Her Back

by melannen



Category: Miss Madelyn Mack Detective - Hugh Cosgro Weir, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Corsetry, Crossover, Detective, Epistolary, F/F, Steampunk, Yuletide, edwardian, femmeslash, public domain canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/melannen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miss Madelyn Mack is far cleverer than her old friend, Sherlock Holmes - she is the most successful professional detective in New York City. Miss Nora Noraker, intrepid newspaperwoman, is her loyal chronicler and inseparable bosom companion. The rest - you can probably fill in for yourself, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver Buttons All Down Her Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cinaed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinaed/gifts).



> I was given the papers that follow by a fellow scholar of the detective arts who works in London. He was aware of my abiding interest in the career of Miss Madelyn Mack, and finding these two letters in a collection he had uncovered, thought that they might be of use to me. They were in a file-box among a number of clippings from New York newspapers, and while they appear to be part of a continuing correspondence, any other letters in the sequence are, unfortunately, lost to us.
> 
> For those who are curious as to the affair of the "Leaping Elephant", which is referenced in the first letter, I commend you to Miss Noraker's newspaper accounts, which I lacked the leisure to compile here. Failing that, this reference may assist you in envisioning further details: http://mmcsl.com/coney/html/page009.htm

Miss Nora Noraker  
The "Rosary", Tarrytown, New York  
July 18, 19--

 

My Dear Dr. W-----,

It was, as always, a pleasure to receive correspondence from the one person who, despite the appearance that we have quite nothing in common, is more in sympathy with me in one dear matter than any other person on this Earth. I am only sorry that it has taken me so long to offer you a reply; and sorry, as well, that your own "relations" have not progressed so far as you have so long desired. I write to offer you my encouragement as always; and to tell you that perhaps I can give you, at least, some reassurance that your tale may end as happily as mine.

For, indeed, I have at last found that glad consummation of which we have so many times spoken and dreamed in company! And so you see, it is after all possible that such wishes may come to pass; though you might protest that women are naturally more capable of those sorts of gentle resolutions than dull male-kind, a statement with which I would, in general, most fervently agree - I commend you to your own knowledge of the temperament and character of my Madelyn, who, while she might be in some slight way more suited to such things than you own dear one, is far from what might be called a natural when it comes to comprehending the complexities of matters of the heart.

And if to tell of my own happiness while your own continues in abeyance seems rather closer to an unsightly display of triumph than to comfort in fellow-spirit, well then, I assure you that I write also in hopes that, if nothing else, the details of the narrative I relate within might offer you another sort of consolation in the loneliness of your nights.

The shift toward the current state of our affairs began during our efforts as regards the most curious case of the jumping Elephant; with which you will of course be familiar as a consequence of your companion's newspaper-reading habits, if more for the fascinating detail of the phosphorous-ash and the fifty-cent piece than for the tangles of human passion with which my usual readers are more often concerned.

We had been granted the use of rooms within the Elephant Hotel itself, and I had been marveling at the flights of fancy of which my nation is capable; and perhaps pondering other matters; "going to see the Elephant", you may be amused to know, has reached the level of a common euphemism in the city of New York, for the sort of things that are often done in cheap hotels by the sea-side. As a consequence, I had not yet retired for the night, though it neared the hour of twelve, when Madelyn herself appeared at the door of my room, clad in a gown of her customary white. It had been a difficult day of investigation; indeed a difficult case in general, and more for Madelyn than myself, as she does tend to take any delay in finding a solution as a personal failure. She showed it, too, through her overall state of disarray, and a pronounced agitation, an expression of emotion which I flatter myself she would refuse to display to any other person on this earth.

"Nora," she said to me, a tremor showing in her voice, "As you are always telling me that what I need is to give in to my womanly weakness and have, as you would put it, "a good cry," I am sure you will be pleased to note that I believe I shall be taking your advice shortly."

"I do not believe that "weakness" is the wording which I would use," I said softly, as I stood and then drew her down onto the bed-covers beside me.

"It is not - it is, oh-" she said, "It is not as if I have anything to cry about: it is only frustration and exhaustion and temper--" she choked on her own voice, there, so I took the opportunity to lay my arm around her shoulders and pull her head down to rest on mine, "I am heartily ashamed of myself for the lack of sense--"

"A good cry is a good cry, and it will do you good regardless of the reasons," I told her severely, as she wiped at an eye. "And it is not exhaustion, I would lay a long bet, so much as it is those thrice-cursed cola berries; how long has it been since you slept?"

"Only since yesterday afternoon: I had a good hour's nap in the superintendent's office," she told me, in several segments; for speaking, as it does sometimes, loosed what control she had left; she gave a great sob into the lace of my collar, and pressed her face against me for a short bout of quiet weeping before she took a great gasping breath and was still again.

"There," I said. "You cannot tell me you are not better for that small indulgence, and I do wish you would allow yourself such more often."

Madelyn smiled at me, watery and red about the eyes, but her face no less dear than ever. "Nora," she said, "Nora, if I should indulge -" she breathed again. "You do me more good than any storm of temper ever shall; have I ever told you that I am in no way deserving of the joy of your steady arms and steady counsel?"

"Nonsense," I told her. "You have said no such thing: and never shall again, I most fervently hope. A good cry is a good cry, Madelyn, but I should be wretched to find you had abandoned the usual high-handed self-assurance of which I have grown so fond. At any rate, I am but a poor student at the feet of your dear Susan."

"To whom you will, I am sure, be reporting all of tonight's excitements, in the most excruciating detail," replied Madelyn, with an attempt at her usual humor.

"And you shall be forced to eat strawberry shortcakes and chicken pie for days on end, no doubt," I said. "And be treated like a queen; to be cared for is one of life's great trials. Do you think you could sleep now? I find it to be one of the more beneficial results of a cry."

"I think I might manage a short nap, before I return to my study," said Madelyn. "But no more than that. Would it inconvenience you terribly if I simply collapsed where I sit?"

"Not in the least!" I laughed. "I have some writing I wished to do before retiring; you shall not disturb me, and I doubt I will have the capacity to awaken you, if you truly have not slept since yesterday."

She lay back over the coverlet, and was quite deeply fallen into dreams almost before I had risen to return to my desk. It was, perhaps, selfishness on my part to allow her to remain where she was; but selfishness in two parts, for I was well aware that, should she return to her own lodgings, she would find another puzzle-piece to worry at, and spend yet another night awake and fretting with the help of her chemical friend.

As it was, she had not so much as stirred by the time my column-inches covering the mystery were written and read over, and when I returned from taking the article to be delivered to _The Bugle_'s office by way of the telegraph, she was still as lost to the waking world as she had been when I left.

Such a sight Madelyn made! Her golden curls spread in disarray upon the pillow, and the froth of her white gown and petticoats tumbled about her like spray, her hands splayed relaxed and empty at her sides. There are some people who look quite young when they sleep, or lose to relaxation all the worry they store in their faces; but Madelyn looks, if anything, older; she tends to carry a mysterious hint of a smile on her sleeping face, as if she is an Athena or Selene who knows some secret that is hers alone: no more vulnerable than she ever is, but as much a temptation to sin.

I contented myself in removing her collar and boots; as she tends not to wear a hard corset on days when fast action may be required, I could not justify to myself any more before I changed into my own night-clothes and lay down beside her, quite prepared for a morning's recriminations over letting her sleep.

It was, perhaps, too much to hope for. I was instead awakened just at dawn, by Madelyn leaning over me in bed, her face alight and radiant. You will allow me, in the muddled state of one just rising from too little sleep, a bare moment of happy confusion, before Madelyn said, "I have solved it, Nora! It wasn't about the fifty-cent piece - of course it was not - but it wasn't about the fire-works either; I have been blinkered. Dress as quick as you can, and meet me down-stairs in the cigar shop."

And with that, she was off, and moving as quickly as ever Madelyn does when she is on a scent-trail. It was little more than twelve hours before we had received the thanks of the hotel's owner, seen the young lovers off to their parents; and, my final report having gone safely to my editor already, I found myself seated with Madelyn on a railway-train, not a half-hour's journey from my own clean bed.

The repose Madelyn had found in my bed the previous evening had not been near enough to make up for the way she had been driving herself. She yawned beside as she said, still thinking of the recent resolution, "There is something wonderful about the ways of love, is there not, Nora?"

"To be honest," I replied, "I had always thought you largely indifferent to such romantic sentiments."

"Well, I will confess to being quite immune to the charms of man-kind," she told me. "That does not bother you, I hope?"

That men hold no special interest for Madelyn is patently obvious the minute you observe her interaction with them; what I desired most passionately to know was whether her interest led her toward no-one at all, or toward the fairer sex - or at least toward myself. "Men do have their charms," I said. "I admit it would be deeply comical to see you pining after some dandy with a cravat and a large walking-stick. But have you never given wistful thought to - to a person who will be a fellow-comrade, to take long walks beside and a talk of nothing; to talk of your work and your leisure with; to be the other half of a home?"

"Precisely," said Madelyn, yawning again and lying back in the seat until her cheek rested against mine. "And having that, surely it would be most errant ingratitude on my part to seek after anything more."

I will tell you now, my friend, that I panicked: if I was hearing what I wished to hear, then all was well and more than well; but if she felt it necessary to warn me off -- it was still not worth the risk of losing her entirely. "Men tdo have things to offer that no friendship ever will, Madelyn," I said, "I myself am a great admirer of broad and well-defined shoulders--" attempting to sound casual, and not at all like an avowed Sapphist putting up a desperate smokescreen. I do admire a pair of masculine shoulders; that I admire at least as much the curve of a woman's up to a slender neck is something that, perhaps, I should not have feared so much to reveal to my dear partner. But such things only become difficult when they matter most.

As it turned out it did not matter at all, for before I had got two sentences into my ode to masculine beauty, Madelyn had fallen sound asleep against my shoulder, and remained so when the train came to my downtown station and I gently transferred her to rest against the window-glass instead.

It was all of three o'clock in the morning when the telephone in my room jangled me awake, after the next day's busy work at the newspaper office. Had it not already quite thoroughly awakened me I would have, most likely, conceded to petulance and ignored it in favor of the sort of sentimental dreams that are unbecoming to a woman of my age and profession. (Which, if they centered around a certain golden-haired detective sharing the bed with me, I will declare is not to my detriment at all.) However, as a 'phone call at such an hour was likely to be of some importance, I dragged myself across the room to answer it.

It was Madelyn: no-one else calls me at unreasonable hours in order to laugh at me. "This is not in any way a proper time to call a lady," I greeted her, rather openly cross.

"I take it, then, that you are not awake and dressed, sitting at your desk," she answered me.

As it was perhaps the warmest night of the summer, and my hall room is stifling at the best of times, all the more evident after the better part of a week at the sea-shore, I had in fact retired for the night wearing a great deal less than is expected of a lady. Such freedoms are one of the few charms of maintaining a lonely habitation. But as I had, at the time, not quite convinced myself that Madelyn would wish a description of such, I leave the details of my garb to your own febrile imagination as I did to hers.

"I was sound asleep, Madelyn," I said instead. "Is there some case that required you to summon me from bed at three o'clock?"

"Is it that late? Truly?" she said. "I had entirely lost track of time. I have been up and pacing all night; quite incapable of achieving slumber's embrace. Though the image of yourself, deshabille and clinging to the telephone--"

"The insomnia would be the fault of the cola-"

"Oh, do give it a rest, Nora," said Madelyn. "It is you. I don't believe I have ever slept so well in my life as I have when you are beside me; come to the Rosary this week-end."

"Madelyn! Is a 'phone call at this hour--"

"Oh, well, it is only that there is a most marvelous cool breeze off the Hudson, and with the rose-trees in bloom and screening the windows - but if you want to stay in the city--"

"I will come," I growled. There was never any question that I would come, of course; when Madelyn calls, I answer. But then you of all people would know how that happens.

I caught the first train north after my duties at the downtown offices of _The Bugle_ were completed that afternoon, leaving directly from the office - I had long abandoned the pretense of packing a bag for these week-ends with Madelyn, for she is in the habit of luring me into a taxicab at short notice and bearing me away like a fairy-tale prince with his frog. As a result a fair number of my own things have migrated to the Rosary quite of their own accord, and to pack as if I were visiting a place other than what was, already, the other half of my home would simply be an exercise in vain denial.

All the same, as I debarked from the train at the suburban station and began the half-mile's walk to the rose-girdled chalet that Madelyn calls home, I could not stop myself from pondering - at length - the possibility that this invitation was at long last intended in a different spirit. When Madelyn calls, I come; but as you and I have both known for quite some time, I would be willing to come much farther than she had ever called. As to what might happen on the day when she knows exactly as well as you and I - well, her remarks on the previous night's 'phone, and on the train from Coney Island, and certain lingering looks the previous day - led be to believe that perhaps she had, and that the outcome would be all that I had hoped.

The warm summer's night - the fresh airs off the river - and the profusion of perfumed blossoms to greet me as I ventured through the garden to the Rosary's door - did nothing to dissuade me from my general mood, and when I lifted to knock, I felt the door swing open beneath my hand.

"Do come in to the den, Nora," Madelyn called. "And bolt the door behind you - there's a dear. Susan and John have gone to her sister's, so to-night it is only the two of us."

It took no great powers of reasoning to understand why Madelyn had not come to greet me, for the house was filled with the swelling strains of one of the phonograph recordings in which she likes to submerge herself quite completely. Tonight's program was a solo violin, and though I have, I flatter myself, more than the average layman's knowledge of the art, I recognized neither the tune nor the artist's style, though I fancy you might find it more familiar. And caught by it, I stood arrested in the doorway of the room, for it was among the most captivatingly beautiful performances I have ever had the pleasure of hearing; whoever had offered his instrument's voice to the recorder had serenaded it with such passion, such yearning, that rose one moment to a height of stormy despair and then sank again into a quiet contentment of wild hope.

No music could have better suited me in that moment, and when the phonograph-disk had spun to an end and I drew myself back to the moment, I saw that Madelyn, too, could not have arranged herself more perfectly. She was draped languidly upon the couch on her belly, such as might call to mind an odalisque by Ingres; only far more slight and slender, and still guarded by the stiff splendour of a lady's gown; she was in all black that night, so that the brightness of her hair and skin seemed inescapable in the dim room, and a line of polished silver buttons down her back followed the perfect elegant curve of a boned corset over precious flesh. And yet her petticoats were kicked carelessly back: layer upon layer of dusky silk revealing a streak of slim bare leg, a delicate foot.

Surely, surely she knew exactly what she was doing do me; I have endeavored to keep the depth of my own feelings far from obvious, but Madelyn always knows exactly what she is doing, and surely, surely--

"What poor violinist have you inveigled with your charms, now?" I asked her, smiling, as I walked farther into the room. "And how many weeks' wages did you pay him for an hour's work?"

"None at all," she answered me, raising herself upon her elbows, showing off even more brazenly the dramatic curve of spine pricked with silver; "for he refuses to play for a commission, no matter how I bribe and cajole, flatter and threaten. I only gained his consent to conserve that composition through the making of a probably quite unwise wager. It is a brilliant piece of work, though, you must confess."

"Brilliant," I agreed. Beside her, on her beloved jaguar-skin rug, a book lay tumbled as if it had fallen from a negligent hand, and I was close enough now to read the volume's title: it was a much-worn copy of Havelock Ellis's most infamous work. As my Madelyn, being of a much more practical bent, is not nearly so given to the leisure reading medical texts or accounts of criminal insanity as your own partner, it could only have been there as a deliberate clue.

"Madelyn," I said to her, "I am beginning to reach the inescapable conclusion that my invitation here tonight was in the nature of a very specific proposition."

She sat up then, the petticoats rustling around her in a way that could not help but grab my attention. "And if I were to tell you that your deduction was in fact correct--"

I laughed. "Then I would reply that I have been waiting a very long time to hear you say that to me."

"Oh Nora," she reached out, and clasped both my hands in hers, "in that case, why wait even a moment longer?"

So I didn't.

You, being a medical man, surely have no need of a detailed accounting of what followed after, though I suppose you are aware of the value of a case study. And I could have studied at that subject forever; to be finally able to touch the softness of her skin, to run my fingers through the tight knot of bright hair, to taste the pale redness of her lips--

There is something about undressing a womanly woman that is entirely incomparable in my own experience. Certainly my own tendency toward BBs and baggy shirtwaists - a necessity for someone who keeps the hours and the wages I do - is nothing comparable, though Madelyn appeared to have no complaints about the matter, as I was down to my drawers before I had even conquered the long line of buttons on her back. Though that was hardly a miracle; each bare inch of white cotton revealed seemed to require its own individual attention, and the slow release of tension which I could feel against me through all her body as I loosened the corset-lacings, and then we both lifted gown and stays and shift together over her head, so that I was left with a lapful of Madelyn in black silk petticoats, bare above the waist save for her locket around her neck, the locket where she keeps always nearby her supply of those deadly cola berries.

"Will you take it off, too?" she said, in a tone of dispassionate curiousity. Today it was a deep red, probably garnet, drawing out the light flush in her skin and the peaks of her small shapely breasts; I had not meant to make an issue of it, tonight of all nights, but resting wear it did it was impossible for me to keep my eyes from it.

"Are you asking me to take it off?" I replied. "I won't, unless you ask."

"Yes," she said. "Yes, Nora, please."

So I twined my arms around her neck, beneath the ruin of her hair, and unclasped chain, setting it carefully aside. Then I bent my head and traced its former path with my tongue, lapping up the sweet salt taste and the scent of roses that never entirely leaves her in the summer-time.

It was not so very much longer before we had tumbled off the couch onto the leopard-skin rug, rubbing against each other in a great tangle of laces and silk. A doctor will be familiar with the mechanics of tribadism; but the mechanics so far exceed the experience that it is well beyond my command of the English language to describe. We did a great many other things that evening, which are equally difficult to capture on a page, in either the scientific vernacular or - in the ways in which we were together - in the vulgar. So perhaps it is best to draw a curtain over the proceedings at this point.

but suffice to say that, well after we had finally achieved her bed, Madelyn did manage the long night of sleep beside me that we had both still desired. In fact, it is well after noon - I have been several hours writing you an inexcusably long and inexcusably candid letter - and she is only now awakening; I can hear her shouting for me to stop my infernal scribbling and keep her company. There is shortcake and strawberries, left in the ice-box for us by Susan; and I do believe that Madelyn intends us to eat them, of all places, in her bed. Imagine! We seem to have quite abandoned all the proprieties already: and I do not foresee us ever having lost anything by it.

In comradeship &amp; sincerely yours,

Nora Noraker.

 

(The following was filed attached to the previous, but is undated and written in an entirely different hand.)

Dear S-------

And thus do I prove the accuracy of my previous conclusions: it was entirely worth the risk, and I still maintain that a similar endeavour would be entirely worth the risk on your part, as well. Especially as my Nora spent several hours the following afternoon composing a missive to your dear Doctor - the contents of which even your sadly deficient imagination ought to be capable of deducing.

Yours,  
M. Mack

P.S.: Yes, you have my blessing to read Nora's letter, should you happen to come upon it in your researches. Though what value it might hold to a man of your particular, and peculiar, enthusiasms I dare not speculate.  
P.S. 2nd: You were quite correct - the recording you sent me was beyond all measure of value or worth. If what you gain in this exchange is anything near what I have gained, I will consider to have gotten fair value by it. (The offer of £600 for another still stands, however.)

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot thank Cinaed enough for requesting this fandom in yuletide2009, which I had never heard of before I got her request. Madelyn and Nora have been the joy of the season for me (as sundry RL friends are all too tired of hearing at this point), and just discovering them was enough to make this year the Best Yuletide Ever already.
> 
> You can read the complete tales of Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective in one volume, through archive.org: http://www.archive.org/stream/missmadelynmack00massgoog . I can only hope this humble story does not do them too great an injustice.


End file.
